The Faces of Birds
by BlueMirage
Summary: Anne Valerian is a muggleborn that is going to start studying at Hogwarts. Due to her way of thinking, she also considers herself insane. She doesn't mind, but magic might be able to uncover something about her the nature of herself.
1. Letter

**Author's note:** I'm changing one thing from the original story. This will take place in 2011, not in 1992. What I like about Potterverse is the setting, so therefore I will try to avoid direct interaction with the main story and instead focus on other issues. I lack the inspiration and skill to write more than one original character, so out of lack of choice, interaction between Anne will be with other canon characters. But again, the original story is unlikely to change as it is the setting that inspires me.

I try to convince myself that I write this for personal enjoyment and improvement of my writing skill.

That's all... for now.

* * *

><p>School was over. Summer break was starting. Anne had little to do in life, as always. Anne had woken up moments ago, and was by now trying to recollect her dream of about eating lunch on top of some sort of roller coaster, where said lunch consisted of rice and peas inside an aluminium box. A man with snakes... and an alligator inside his sleeves had been trying to give her instructions on how to fix the electrical settings of said rollercoaster. She had forgotten most of the stuff after that, but the dream ended with her being inside of one of the most cozy rooms she had ever seen, a small corridor with red seats on the side and the room having lanterns on its walls, dimly lighting said room. It was actually the inside of a bus, and she would be going somewhere far away, but she couldn't remember the destination.<p>

Dreams were great sources of inspiration, although what she would use said inspiration for, she didn't know. One of Anne's hobbies were to write down whatever interesting she remembered from her dreams so that she could recollect the moment later.

"Cozy bus with lanterns inside." she wrote on one of her notepads. Trying to completely describe the whole thing felt impossible, and useless as a few words worked to trigger her memories of it anyway. It wasn't like she was going to tell anyone about it. If she could draw or paint, she would do so instead. Alas, her drawing skills were poor, she didn't like stuff that required practice, and she didn't even have something to paint with or on in her house. She figured if she ever did learn, which was unlikely given her attitude towards it, she wouldn't mind becoming a painter. Or concept artist.

She went down her stairs, ate some nondescript breakfast in the kitchen, then almost forgot to check if she had recieved any mail. As it turns out, she had. Anne was lazily eying the sealed letter in her hand whose the insignia was bearing a large 'H' inside of it. It had a rather descriptive description of where her room was located. It had no postage stamp. She was mildly curious about it and decided to open it up on the spot, which was unusual as she usually opened all of her mail only when required to do so.

Inside was a fairly wierd letter, being an invitation to a school where magic was taught, signed by someone named Minerva McGonagall.

"_They teach people to become illusionists?_" She thought to herself. "_Didn't know there were any such schools._" She held respect for them having a school that taught the subject (even if she wasn't interested in learning it), while also losing said respect in that they didn't refer to themselves as illusionists. She had heard that proffesionals used that term instead and scoffed at people who still called it 'magic'.

When she later read the course material, she changed her opinion.

"Ah." she said to herself. "_Real magic. Might be interesting. Especially if it's free._" Whether it was true or false, she didn't care. As always. If she had nothing suggesting that statement A was either true or false, she considered statement A to be both true or false until something suggesting otherwise was provided or observed. In short, she thought nothing of it and didn't give a damn whether it actually was true or not. It was time to do other stuff.

* * *

><p>Minerva was staring at the front door of a house. Specifically, a muggle house. More specifically, a muggle house owned by a family called Valerian. The school had somewhat recently enacted a new policy on that every new muggleborn student that might be attending Hogwarts would have one of their Professors visit them. Minerva had rung the doorell, and a few moments later the door was opened by a young girl.<p>

"Hello. Can I help you?" the girl asked curiously.

Judging from her height, Minerva guessed it was the person she was looking for.

"I believe so. You wouldn't be miss Anne Valerian, would you?"

"That would be correct." Anne answered.

"My name is Professor McGonagall. I work as Deputy Headmistress at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, but certainly you already know about that, don't you?"

"Correct. I do know of Hogwarts. I got a letter about it."

Minerva expected Anne to continue, but she wasn't saying a word, so she eventually took initiative.

"May I come in?"

"Err, maybe. It depends whether on Hogwarts is real or not. Should it not be real, then I'm looking straight at the person who is most likely the mastermind of either a big prank or some kind of scam."

Minerva was suprised at the thought the young girl had given towards this, and started thinking of ways she could show the girl some magic without alerting the muggle neighbourhood. Anne, noticing the 'concerned' (for the lack of a better word) look on the old witch, interrupted her line of thought.

"I kid. Do come in."

* * *

><p>They sat down at the dinner table.<p>

"I suppose you already know of why I'm here?" Minerva asked.

"I have no idea at all actually. The letter only mentioned something about an owl reply, and I have no idea of what such a thing is." Anne replied.

"Well, since your parents are not magical, we at Hogwarts decide to take every muggleborn witch or wizard to a trip to Diagon Alley, where they can purchase the material required for attendance at Hogwarts. Speaking of which, where are your parents?"

"Elsewhere. Not exactly sure where at the moment. I like being to myself so I don't really mind where they go. What are muggles?"

"Non-magical people." Minerva simply replied.

"No further definition?"

"Not really, no. Wizards rarely interact with muggles, we try to keep ourselves secret. Otherwise, you would already know all about this, wouldn't you?"

"Or your school does not exist. Why keep yourselves secret?" Anne knew that her statement and question were inconsistent of eachother. She didn't mind.

"A variety of reasons, but the easiest example would be the old witch hunts. People are simply envious or afraid of others that have skills which they cannot achieve." Minerva replied.

Anne simply looked at her with a slightly bored look. The answer was quite obvious and she didn't have to give it much thought.

"Anyway, you wished for me to demonstrate magic?" McGonagall asked with a voice that was ever the slightly tinted with excitement.

"Yes, that would be appreciated." Anne wasn't looking as bored as now. She was conscious of it, but not in words, that McGonagall's tone had given the situation much more truth.

Minerva withdrew what looked like a nice looking stick from her robes and gave the table they were sitting by a light tap. It prompty turned into a bronze statue depicting an muscular man holding a globe.

Anne had actually already been convinced earlier in her mind earlier that she was not being lied to, but seeing it with her own eyes was something else. Sure, she knew she was the type to almost trust any theory given some arguments, whether they be true or not, to the point that people could call her naive. But trust was different from belief and for Anne this was plenty of evidence.

"Huh, magic." Anne said. Minerva noticed that while still just as calm, it was also a bit different. Somehow, it was like as if the girl was already a witch. Or atleast not muggleborn.

Minerva gave the statue another tap and it returned to its original physicalities. Anne's voice was quick to contact her.

"And Hogwarts teaches this transformation? How does the procedure work?"

"Yes, taking _Transfiguration_ is a must at Hogwarts. As for how magic exactly works, you're looking at a very big question in the wizard world that is difficult to answer. Yes, we have some laws of what can and cannot be done, but exactly why is often unknown. If we knew exactly how it worked, it would not be called 'magic'." Minerva smiled a bit to herself.

Minerva paused, waiting for more questions, but the girl expected her to continue (Anne had no other questions at this point), so she did.

"Still, you must have experienced some kind of magic happening around you? It's unheard of that a magical child would not produce accidental magic. For example, you got angry by a schoolyard bully and their hair turned turqoise."

"I don't really remember that specific event ever occuring, but you wouldn't be referring to when it feels like I've teleported to another part of the house since I can't remember walking between two points?"

Minerva laughed a bit on the inside. "Well, I doubt you've apparated at such a young age. Accidental magic usually happens due to large bursts of emotion, like being angry or feeling threatened. You've never had wierd events happen around you?" Minerva asked with an innocent curiosity.

"Eh, probably. Maybe there was this one time when... something happened? Or was it more than one time? I can't really rememer."

"You can't remember it?" Minerva worried, had her memories been obliviated?

"My family playfully teases me about how bad my memory is. I don't mind at all. Forgetting boring stuff is good."

Minerva eventually relaxed. The girl had after all told her that she couldn't remember walking between two places. It wouldn't be too unusual if she just had bad memory.

"So, when is this trip you're taking me on?" Anne asked.

"This Saturday. I'll be here at 12 o' clock, so be prepared."

"Don't worry, I will be."

* * *

><p>Well, that was interesting. Anne had been quite eager to find out that magic existed when she got a letter about it, but was quickly disheartened when she quickly realized she didn't know where to get any of the stuff she needed. She still didn't know where the school was located.<p>

"Eh, she'll tell me later." Anne said to herself.

Anne had a habit of talking to herself sometimes. She had also already forgotten the name of the person she just spoke to. She could read the letter again when she needed to remember it. People usually assumed that she had bad memory. Anne didn't agree. She remembered everything that she wanted to remember. Selective memory indeed.

"_Minerva said that magic is not something that cannot be, or atleast hasn't been yet, properly explained. It is not fueled by logic. It had tendencies to occur when you were angry, but by the way she said it, this is not the only time. Is emotion the drive behind it then? No, not possible. Minerva's face didn't move at all when she made that atlas. Although she had what I guess would be a wand, the letter said something about one. Although if magic can happen without one, then I have to assume that one is not needed._"

Anne was starting to get hungry, and she was in the kitchen already, but she was more curious and hungry. She loved to experiment, as long as it was trial and error and not writing down a bunch of stuff and then making a theory. So, what she did was focus on one of the drawers containing eating utensils, forks and all. She focused her eyes upon it. She had tried this some other times, the exact same situation, trying to pull out the drawers with her mind. Although those times, she had just been lazy and not wanting to bend down her body to manually do so, and when she did she didn't completely believe anything would happen. It was just a moment of "_You know, it would be awesome if this worked, although I know it won't._". This was different she knew magic was atleast somewhat real, she didn't really know the limits of it, but that was OK, her once again easily convinced mind that would sometimes believe anything just said that this could work 100%.

She wished it to open itself. To her minor amazement, it did not.

"Meeeh, how annoying. _I was expecting this shit to work._" She didn't mean the word, she just couldn't think of anything better. She longed for instant gratification where she could turn the table into a giant atlas by touching it with a piece of wood. Or without a piece of wood. Then, to her minor amazement, the table cracked and fell apart in the middle, loudly smacking the floor with a sound that Anne was sure could have been heard from the outside.

Anne was unfazed by the sound. "_Damn, this magic thing is going to be problematic._"

She did not realize that the table did not fall apart due to her thinking of it becoming an atlas, but that it fell apart due to her being angry due to not being able to change the table into an atlas. She was insane, not a genius.


	2. Wand

Saturday eventually came about. Anne woke up to the ringing of a bell. She remembered that she had totally forgotten about today. She had been trying to replicate the experiment destroying her table. She didn't need it much, she could eat elsewhere. She had been having some success; she could do it more reliably, as in more frequent, but the result end effect of whatever target she used was quite random. It usually varied between cracking, turning to mush, bursting into flames or outright exploding. Although on some tries (a few out of a million), she had gotten pleasant results. While a dancing teddy bear wasn't exactly what he had in mind, it was much better than it growing sharp teeth.

She forgot about writing down her dream (of flying pancakes, which wasn't very interesting anyway so she wouldn't have written it down anyway) as she lazily rushed to front door to see... whatever her name was again. Hopefully she would be unable to tell that Anne had just woken up. "Hello there." Anne was careful to avoid having to say the name of the woman. She also told herself to not let her into the house lest she'd see the destruction and chaos present on the inside.

"Good afternoon miss Valerian. Do I need to wait for you to prepare or are you ready to apparate?"

"What's apparating?"

"Muggles usually refer to it as teleporting. You even called it as such yourself when I was here last time. Is that enough of an explanation?"

"You may need to tell me that it means that you're going from point A to point B instantly without having to travel the distance inbetween them. But yes, I'm ready." Anne was satisfied with her current state, and so wasn't technically lying.

Minerva smiled. "No time for jokes." Anne thus planned to joke plenty more later. She took Anne's hand, and they apparated away.

* * *

><p>Anne blinked and found herself standing in front of what she would describe as a bar. But her first thought was that it was wierd that instantaneous travel took subjective time. She could remember the feeling of being squeezed through a tight tunnel, but she could not remember the event. Anne knew she had not forgotten about it, since she knew forgetting gave a much different feeling. Anne loved dreams, and she would sometimes wake up knowing that she had dreamt while still not remembering a single piece of it, but she would know she had dreamt. She assumed memory removal, if her current knowledge said was impossible, would be the same. She could not make sense of the situation, not that she had to. Though this was something worth remembering and thinking about later.<p>

Minerva almost dragged her into the Leaky Cauldron. She didn't want to waste time, and Anne, like all other muggle-borns, seemed what Minerva thought was dumbstruck. Of course, she didn't know that she was actually in deep thought, nor did she care.

The two of them quickly reached the hidden passage to Diagon Alley. Minerva gave the correct brick a light tap with her wand, and it slowly unfurled to become a gateway.

"Right then, where do we begin?" Minerva said with a tired voice. She had done this far too many times already.

"Ehm, couldn't we just transfigure most, if not all of these items? What you did to my table back home changed it into a big mass of metal, and my table is most definately not made of metal so transfiguration is obviously not just only changing shape. Couldn't we..."

"No." Minerva interrupted. "Transfiguration is not permanent. You would have to do it every time you wanted to use something. Also, should you want to use what you produce with for something magical, say producing potions, the magic of the transfiguration could interfere and you'd end up with disaster. If you wanted to transfigure something into a book, you would have to know exactly what would be put into the pages of the book, which is extremely counterproductive if you're the only one that is going to be reading the book as you would only be able to read what you already know. Transfiguration cannot create the magic that is placed on the items you're going to be using either, for example a broom (even if we are not buying one), could not be transfigured. Well, you could, but only half-way. _If_ you could put charms on the broom afterwards, it would work, what I said earlier makes that impossible. Lastly, I do not have time to produce all of the course material for every student at Hogwarts because I do not have the will or time for it. Do you want to waste it further?" Minerva was, quite clearly, not withholding her impatience.

Even Anna could read the situation. She was grateful for the elaborate answer, finding the lecture very informative. She wondered why magic could interfere with itself, but doubted that anyone in the wizarding world knew exactly why.

"What are brooms used for?"

"Don't test my patience any more than you already have." With that, they went to go shopping.

* * *

><p>"So, looking at this list, the only things that I still need is a... wand?"<p>

"Yes, that would be correct. The scholarship that the school provides to muggleborns only covers what is required, so if you wish to purchase an owl or something of the sort you will have to pay for it by yourself."

"No worries, I prefer to be alone." Anne reminded her. Anne didn't mind socializing, not at all, but being alone held a flavor that she usually preferred to the alternatives.

"Well, that's very appropriate miss Valerian, because I won't be helping you purchase your wand."

"Why does one need a wand anyway?"

"A wizard or witch without a wand is a mostly powerless wizard. A very small amount of magic can be performed without them."

"And why is that? What types of magic can be used without one, and why?"

"I'm sure that Ollivander is better at answering those questions than I am. After you've recieved your wand, I will be gone and you're free to do as you like. I reccomend going home at once. I also forbid you to go to Knockturn Alley. For now, good luck." Minerva said and hushed her to the door of Ollivanders'.

Anne didn't bother asking why she couldn't go there seeing as her guide would not answer her question. Anne entered the shop.

Anne was quite pleased with the insides of the shop. Dimly lit, cozy, and with stuffed with what looked like cases. The dimensions of the stairs inside defied all dimensions she knew of.

"Greetings." Anne noticed a fairly old man behind what looked like a mountain of cases. She guessed he was the one called Ollivander. "Who might I be serving today?"

"Depends on whether or not you're serving me." Anne replied.

The man seemed to like what he thought was Anne's way of humor. He smiled.

"Anne Valerian. I'm getting my first wand for Hogwarts attendance."

"I see I see." The man said to himself. "Please stand over here and hold out your wand arm."

"Which would be which arm? My right?"

"That would be the most common one. Are you left-handed?"

"Not that I know of."

Again, Anne thought the man seemed amused by what he thought was her humor. She wasn't being humourous, she just couldn't tell for sure if she was right-handed. Her reasoning was that she didn't use her right hand for exactly everything, thus the possibility that she was left-handed existed, although it was very unlikely. She held out her right arm.

Ollivander took her hand and began measuring her arm.

"Is arm length important somehow?" Anne curiously asked.

"The wand chooses the wizard." He replied. Anne felt as if the answer was almost mechanical. She wondered whether he knew what it actually meant.

"Depending on arm length?" She asked with what was her actual sense of humor.

Ollivander found this amusing as well, but answered: "No, on personality."

"If that is the case, why is the length of my arm important? Isn't the length of my arm irrelevant to my personality? Would I get a different wand if I let my arms grow before I got one?"

Anne was bombarding him with what could be considered as rude questions, but he still answered calmly. "No, it would not change which wand you get. However, there are certain variables that I can work with that lets us find said wand faster."

Anne finally understod his reasoning and quietly let him take his measurements. She somewhat enjoyed the situation, thinking that she should get a massage sometime. Eventually, she remembered something else.

"Why does a wizard need a wand? I know through accidental magic that it is possible to perform magic without one." She spoke without emotion. Ollivander interpreted it as coldness and looked slightly hurt by hearing it.

"A wand is an instrument through which it is easy to channel magic, thus making it possible to control it. Without one, you would be working very hard to not be sending magic in every direction."

Anne ignored his hurt demeanor and continued. "If what is known as 'magic' flows through me, for example a finger, why substitute it with a wand? Also, if a wand has some sort of personality, which I certainly doubt it doesn't as otherwise it would be hard for it to choose someone over something as irrational as personality, won't this interfere with the process of producing useful spells? Two personalities can only match eachother so much, never quite getting to 100% while one using their own personality as a 'wand' would get perfect results."

Ollivander wasn't exactly, but Anne couldn't correctly interpret exactly what emotion it was. "You misunderstand. It's not about personality matching, it's about accepting. Either a wand lets you use it to it to its fullest, or it resists being used."

"Then why do some people get more than one wand, if their first wand is 'perfect' for usage?"

"Some wands are better for various fields of magic. I have personally only produced magic with one." He consciously avoided the word 'use'.

Anne didn't catch on to his strange wording. "But there must be some people who do not use wands, right? I know that it is possible, accidental magic is prevalent with everyone."

"Since you asked, I must to admit that there are some crazy cultures in the world that 'teach' themselves to let their magic run rampant without controlling it with a wand."

"And what do you really know of those? Can you name them? Can you recite what litte theory there is behind their magic and their philosophical values, or is your opinion influenced by ignorance?

Ollivander had finally taken too much. For Anne, this was only confirmation that he actually was ignorant of other cultures.

"Please young lady, don't insult my line of work."

With that, he finished his measuring and went back to fetch a wand case.

Anne tested out several wands by waving them in the air, until Ollivander completely stopped. For a long time, too.

"That wand that you're holding right now, Oak, no handle, acorn patterned, unicorn hair core, do you know why it doesn't work?" Ollivander didn't hold as much of that emotion that Anne didn't recognize, but some of it was still present.

"I know nothing, I only suspect."

"I am certain that this wand has accepted you. Which means the only possibility that it doesn't work is because you are a muggle, which I we both know is false, or because you have not accepted it. You doubt it and do not trust it, which seems to fit as you've described yourself as a person that prefers being alone." Ollivander mentioned nothing of their previous discussion. "At first, I was considering refusing selling it to you, but I've changed my mind. I'm sure you will appreciate this, but for this time, let's just say... that I sell wands based not on their acceptance, but on their... results. I am giving you a choice, either I will sell you this wand, or I will, or you may purchase something that I doubt anyone else would ever buy, but my guess is that you will prefer it to this one. Well?

"Let's have a look at it then."

The man went further back into his shop, and did not bring a wand case with him, just the wand itself. Ollivander held it in front of her, and said: "Try it."

Anne took it in her hand, and then looked at it. It looked just like the previous wand she had tried. Actually, saying 'just like it', would do it justice; she couldn't tell any difference between it and the wand that was lying inside its case on the table. She complied Ollivander's order and swished it in the air. Some things happened, she didn't bother noticing exactly what. What she did notice is that she felt no negative feelings from it.

Ollivander steeled himself for what he was going to say. "I did not bring that wand from my storage. I went to my workshop, and had it created as an exact replica of the other wand you tried. However, most people wouldn't even call this wand finished, for there is one difference to it and its original - it has no magical core. Nor any personality. To me, this is a _dead_ wand."

Anne finally started to grasp why Ollivander looked so pained to be around her.

"There you have your wand, miss Valerian. I will sell you an incomplete wand for 2 galleons instead of the usual 7. Should you ever decide come here again, I hope that your life has changed considerably."

Anne quickly retrieved some of her gold, put it on the counter, then walked out of the shop. She realized he had hurt the man and didn't want to pain him further. She was 'distant' to other people because she very much disliked hurting others, yet she had just done it. She couldn't even apologize about it. It was time ask some some strangers how to get to her home adress.


	3. Train

Getting out of the alley was easy, as it was fairly straight. Once Anne got out of the Leaky Cauldron, she asked the first stranger she met: "Which direction is X?" She went in that direction until she reached any type of fork, found a new stranger, repeat. Once she arrived at X, she asked for a location that was closer to her home. Voila, much better than having one person explain the whole way with turns and whatnot, even better since the stranger she met did not have to know where she lived. Which, they hopefully didn't.

"Hmm, what should we do now?"

Anne knew, or well, she didn't know actually as nothing is certain, but she thought she was somewhat insane at times. She figured most people didn't talk to themselves, she didn't know any that did as they didn't speak of it and she didn't use time to spy on people. She guessed that other people that did, used 'I' or 'You' when doing so. She tended to use 'One' or 'We'. She seemed to have some rules that decided what word she used, but she couldn't quite figure it out. She wasn't too good at language. Language had to be given a lot of time, you needed people to practice it with, and _you couldn't do it as you wanted_. The only explanation she could think of why she sometimes used 'One' or 'We' was that in some distant corner of her mind, she felt as if being watched by... a crowd of nothing. Hard to explain. But if she was (and to Anne, anything is possible), then you've got to include them when speaking, right?

Oh she didn't think someone was actually stalking her. That would be madness.

Anyway, being insane is good! It makes a boring world more 'less boring'.

"_Well, I've got nothing else to do so I might as well, ehm, destroy my house some more._" 1st of September was a little more than a month away. She wanted to call herself competent in atleast some sort of magic regardless of how primitive it would be. Picked the first book she found, which was on Charms, and opened it to see that it was little more than an encyclopedia of spells. Most of its contents were little more than just lists of spells with their descriptions on effect, conditions of usage, wand movements, what to think when performing the spell, some of its history, and some training excersises for the spell. Anne quickly noticed just how broad and wide usage charms had, and since she wouldn't be able to find any sort of unifying theory on them, she decided to just look through the book and see what charms offered. She wondered if wand movement were required if you were doing the spell without a wand.

She stopped as she came across _Accio_ and _Depulso_, the Summoning and the Banishing charm.

"_I am so going to learn these two. They're just too awesome to not learn right away. I'll even use my wand if I have to._"

* * *

><p>Anne quickly learned that learning two fourth-year spells was not as easy as she had thought. It was <em>damn<em> hard. At first, she had tried just pointing at an object and saying "_Accio Object!_", and nothing happened. She tried several times, no result at all. So, she retrieved her wand, did the same, even tried the wand movement that came along with the spell, and still no result.

"_Is there some sort of limit that prevents me from using this spell yet? I can't even know if I'm making any progress, nor is there anything that will tell me more explicitly how to perform this._" Well, atleast Anne was glad it wasn't physical excersise. She could sit in a chair all day long and repeat the excersise. She could multitask while doing it, and other than repeating wand movements it was not physically tiring at all, unlike jogging which he loathed with a cause.

She eventually went back to doing random magic without the wand. Atleast that had results.

* * *

><p>Anne hadn't forgotten about the important event today, she was going to Hogwarts! Indeed, someone insane like herself was actually quite excited of it, so she hadn't forgotten to instruct her alarm to wake her that morning.<p>

But then she realized.

"_Damn, I forgot to ask her how to get there._"

She became slightly panicked, then she became calm. Panic was uncomfortable and there was no reason she couldn't tell herself not to panic. Easy actually, people often said that they had atleast some control over their emotions. Anne didn't. She just ignored them. Couldn't understand why other people couldn't do it. Oh wait, she was insane.

Thinking to herself, "Well, the only connection that I have to the magical world would be... her, my letter and the stuff we bought in that alley. I can either try to find other people in London that are carrying around a bunch of stuff in a trunk, look for owls, or just stay at home and wait until further contact." The last option seemed the smartest one. She was hungry anyway and breakfast was required. Should all of this go to hell, she'd just have to do... something else. Like read all of these books she got and practice by herself or do nothing.

So Anne picked up her books, looked through the titles of them, and stared as she found _Hogwarts, A History._

"_Well, that solves my problem I suppose._"

* * *

><p>It didn't take for her to find out that she needed to board some train at a wierd platform. No worries, one problem at a time. Get to the station first. She still had quite a lot of time before the train would leave, but for something this grand, she supposed she would take some extra time to make sure she wasn't late. "<em>An hour will suffice. Hopefully.<em>" Anne equipped herself with her iPod, otherwise known as a portable media player, from her pocket. Walking somewhere with music in your ears was a nice experience, she didn't mind if it took two hours. Anne absolutely loved music and couldn't imagine a moment alone without it.

She eventually arrived at Kings Cross Station, and made her way to Platform 9. And 10. Not a soul in sight. She'd just have to wait on the nearby bench. She sat down, and eventually, her iPod just stopped working. She didn't think a word, she only looked at the black screen, and eventually just accepted that she wouldn't get anything other than a black screen from it, and put it away. She had charged it this morning, so she suspected something nearby was messing with it. Magic most likely. Atleast she was in the right place.

It didn't take too much time for Anne to notice someone else with items similar to her own. Lots of books in a trunk. A cat on the shoulder. She stared intently as he ran through the pillar, and was completely amazed. No one had noticed his cat!

"_Maybe I need a cat on my shoulder or something._" Anne joked to herself. Naah, she'd figured it out. She got up with her stuff and simply walked right through the pillar, no problems at all. As she came through, she saw thishuge red train. Seeing no point in waiting, she boarded and found herself an empty room, where she sat down. It didn't take long for the steam-powered train to start moving. Maybe she wasn't so early after all. She complimented herself for being punctual.

She soon got bored of the view, and started opening her bag of stuff that she didn't mind exploding or turning to mush. Not that stuff exploded very often anymore though. She actually had one thing down, she could change the color of anything to what she wanted. It was very useful for solving the Rubik's Cube she'd brought. Much rather not making a mess out of a room she did not own, she retrieved the cube and started playing with it.

However she didn't get to spend much time with it, as the door to her cabin was eventually opened by a girl just as young as her, with very wavy... bushy hair.

"You wouldn't have seen a toad, would you? A person named Neville has lost his." The girl said.

"If I had seen a toad I would most likely have been experimenting on that instead of this." Anne jokingly said.

"That's terrible!" The girl frowned.

"I was joking in case you failed to notice. But do sit down, it's getting boring in here with nothing to do other than practicing magic. Unless you'd prefer to keep looking for said toad."

"Oh you're, practicing magic? Let's see then." The girl had a somewhat... boastful attitude. Anne wondered why.

Anne quickly unsolved her cube, then held it up with her right hand, then changed its colors so that it was effectively solved.

The other girl stared at the cube with suspicion. "That's not a real spell, is it? You didn't use your wand."

"I rarely use my wand. Why would I if I can get the same results without one?"

"All of the books I've read say that you need a wand to perform proper magic."

"Proper, you say? Please give me your

"Proper, you say? Then, please give me your definition of 'proper'."

The girl's jaw was literally open, just a bit, as she struggled to find an answer. Anne didn't particularly enjoy slowing down interesting discussions like this, but she oftentimes couldn't think of better questions. Discussions, according to Anne, are not about telling someone the answer, but making both parties involved realizing the correct answer. Her opinion was never dead set beforehand, though she was often unconvinced by others. The other girl answered after roughly 10 seconds. Not bad actually.

"Proper magic is magic that is safe and reliable."

"Changing the color of an object is dangerous?" "_Well, if done quickly enough I suppose it could give you epilepsy._"

"No, of course not, but what if you, by mistake, do something else?"

"Aha, but training solves everything. Charms book tells me that not every spell is safe, and (nearly) all of those spells are done with wands. So in that sense, it seems just as safe with wands as without wands. As for reliability, by now, I can do this experiment 10 out of 10 times without fail. Want to see?" Anne figured that playing innocent would make the other girl less neutral/hostile.

"No thanks, I should keep looking for that toad. Though I would like to some other time, even without a wand. What's your name?"

"Anne Valerian."

"Valerian? You wouldn't perhaps have gotten your name from Valerian roots, which is used in potion making?"

Anne smiled. "That would be a nice coincidence, but as far as I know, I am muggleborn so I doubt that is the case." Anne glanced back at the girl.

"I'm Hermione Granger. You wouldn't know what house you're going to be sorted in?"

"House? What are you referring to?"

"The four houses of Hogwarts! How could you not know? Haven't you read _Hogwarts, A History_?"

"_This girl seems to have forgotten about that toad already._" "If I hadn't read anything in it, I wouldn't be sitting here right now as the letter I got from Hogwarts mention a smeck of how to get there."

"Well, I think hope I'm going to be in Gryffindor. Ravenclaw doesn't seem so bad either. Yo... oh right. I suggest you read at least a bit about it. I've got a toad to find. See you!"

"Yeah, maybe I will." Anne said as it was clearly a possibility. Maybe she would read the book. "Good luck."

Hermione closed the door and left, and Anne resumed her playing with the cube. Maybe she'd start trying to change it without touching it. The rest of the ride was completely calm and nothing happened. Anne didn't bother with the history book.


	4. Hat

The train eventually came to a stop. Anne exited the train. The station was lit by lanterns and a wooden bridge was above the rails. She liked the place.

"Right then, first years, this way please! Come on now, first years, don't be choid. Come on now, hurry up!"

Anne looked up and saw a ridiculously large man. Anne had no idea what 'choid' meant, but it's probably just her with her somewhat bad hearing. Or the dialect of the large man.

"Right then, this way to the boats, follow me!"

The boat ride was nice. But not comfortable. Anne wasn't too comfortable with boats in the first place. Too wagglish. Although in front of the lot of them was a huge castle. Anne thought that words failed to describe it. Actually, scratch that. It looks just like the castle in the Disney logo.

After walking up far too many stairs, they were greeted by Minerva.

"Welcome to Hogwarts. Now, in a few moments you will pass through these doors and join your classmates, but before you can take your seats you must be sorted into your houses. They are Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin." The last word seemed to hold some contempt. "And while you're here, your house will be like your family. Your triumphs will earn you points, any rulebreaking and you will lose points. By the end of the year, the house with the most points is awarded the house cup. The sorting ceremony will begin momentarily."

Minerva walked away, and the students began chatting. Anne wasn't very interested in chatting at the moment, but she could hear something about someone named Harry Potter and noticed the... surprise was the only word she could think of (she knew it was incorrect), as the word surred between her peers. An argument seemed to be blossoming further up the stairs. Not that she cared. She couldn't find Hermione either but wasn't too interested in looking.

Minerva came back shortly and told them that they were ready to hold the ceremony.

A grand set of doors opened themselves, and the first years formed two somewhat neat lines to walk down between to very long tables. By the end, where a lot of old people were sitting, there was a hat upon a chair. It shortly burst into singing, describing the four houses that Hermione had told her of.

"_See? I saved time by not reading that. I got the same information for free here._"

"Right then, when I call on your name, walk up on to the seat and put the hat onto your head. The hat will then put you in the house you belong."

Anne wasn't quite sure what to think of this though. What kind of measurements did this hat make? Intelligence? Sanity? Personality? What if it used an RNG? Why was it a hat of all things?

Anne was however not the first one to be called up, Hermione was. Anne thought it was wierd that they were not going by alphabet, although it was fairly possible that no one had a letter before 'G'. Hermione prompty put the hat on her head, and the hat instantly started talking.

"Aha, this is a personality test then." Anne thought to herself. "Very interesting, a mind-reading device that can fully understand the definitions and workings of a human mind. Quite rude of it though to start spouting whatever it read out loud so that all the other students and teachers could hear. She really did not want that, especially if she was insane, which she would maybe find out.

The Potter fellow was eventually called up, all students started whispering with the exceptions of a few of the other first-years who were most likely in the same situation as Anne. Not understanding what made him famous. He was put into GRYFFINDOR though.

"Valerian, Anne!"

Anne was excited, but reminded herself to tell the hat to keep his speeches silent. She walked up and put the hat on her head.

"Aha, and what do we have here?" The hat said out loud. Anne was not too happy about the hat disrespecting her wishes. Atleast it did not start screaming or blowing up, she was happy for that.

After that, the hat went completely silent. For a long time.

"_Good evening Anne._" She heard in her head. Thank god this experience was now private. "_I see a very chaotic mind in yourself. However I withhold my _opinion_ on whether you are insane or not. I think you're better off not knowing, and also because even I do not know. I'm keeping this private is not due to your wishes, but merely because even I can hardly make sense out of you._"

"_End result is the same, you're being quiet. I'm a bit sad, I was hoping that atleast something could make sense out of my thoughts. Also, could you read my memory? There's some blacks here and there, I don't think it's important at all actually. If it was, I would atleast remember having forgotten it. Sort of like dreaming, you know you've dreamt but you can't remember what. Thus, since I can't remember forgetting this, I think it's just eh, boring. But I wanted to make sure._"

"_It is a common misconception that I am a memory-reading device. I do not read memories. I understand personalities. I understand the present, not the past. For that matter, not the future either, so any information that I get now is due to how you are at the moment, not to how you will be. However, I can also inform you that while my personality-reading powers on you seem restricted, I can tell you that regardless of whose head I am on I can perfectly decide which house they are meant for. I find you suitable for two._"

"_I do not mind being insane. It is fun. Are you going to tell me which houses I can join, or is it restricted knowledge?_"

"_It is public knowledge, for you at least. Would you like to know?_"

"_Knowledge does nothing but open options, it can never do harm._"

"_You'd be suprised how wrong you are when you learn that memories can be read by others. But I'll take your answer as a yes. I find you suitable for both Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw._"

Anne was surprised by this statement and didn't mentally say anything anything to the hat. Given his silence, she also guessed he could not read her thoughts. If it was due to her being insane or due to him not being unable to read memories, she didn't know.

"_I take it you are surprised?_"

"_Yes, because your statement interferes with the supposed definition of what house a person is eligeble to join. It does not make any sort sense._" Anne thought to the hat.

"_What of it?_" The hat actually sounded curious. Maybe the hat hadn't seen it all despite having been alive for centuries.

"_You measure personality. The speech you gave earlier was for the most part a list of what a house is usually full of. For example, Hufflepuff might be a house full of 'loyal' people, but I would believe that you're not measuring how loyal a person is. Loyalty is not a personality trait. Secondly, I am not loyal to anyone. I'd leave someone with a blink and not care about it, and this would be, according to anyone else, a Slytherin trait. Yet, you find me not suitable for Slytherin. Why would that be? No, you must measure something else. You said that Hufflepuff is a house composed of mostly loyal people. You didn't say that loyal people were sorted into Hufflepuff. This leads me to the conclusion that you are measuring goals. This would make much more sense. So I ask of myself, why is a person cunning? What does one wish to achieve by manipulation?_" The hat knew she was being rhetorical.

Anne continued.

"_A person who manipulates others does so for personal gain. Now, I do not believe this is wrong. I think that every being on Earth capable of conscious choice is ultimately ultimately completely hedonistic. Actually, let me take back something. A house is not a goal, everyone wishes for pleasure, so instead it must be a path. Regardless, a Slytherin is just more direct about being hedonistic. But, from the information you've given me, a Slytherin wishes for power. Why would an 11-year old want power? They want to be self-sufficient, and not be any sort of slave. A Gryffindor is brave because he or she wants the approval of others, to be appreciated. Now, a lot of people would think this to be shallow, but again, I think everyone is ultimately hedonistic. For example, a Slytherin would save a person because it would increase his status, making it more difficult for others to harm him. A Gryffindor would save a person because he would feel good doing so. Both are in the end driven by the one desire to not feel bad, because everyone seeks good feeling. As a Gryffindor example, the first one you sorted today was Hermione Granger. From my short chat with her that I had on the train, I can tell that she is at least above average in intelligence. But she was sorted into Gryffindor. She questioned my ideas of not using a wand. She called it improper. She wishes to follow laws and gain acceptance by doing so._"

Anne paused, then continued.

"_I do however think that you're correct on Ravenclaw. Some people, myself included, simply gain happiness with knowledge. Although being Ravenclaw does not mean being smart. A common misconception. As for Hufflepuff, let me start by saying something else. I do not think you can represent every personality, or goal, possible with four groups. It's simply too few. With that said, what are the goals of a Hufflepuff? Being loyal? I certainly do not enjoy that, and thus we can prove that it is an effect, not a cause. Atleast for most. While I can't prove any of this, and there may be better theories, here's my idea: A Hufflepuff is loyal since he or she does not have a specific path. They let their life flow, living in the moment. Oftentimes, happy regardless of what they do. They would rather help someone instead of planning something for the future, which makes them come across as friendly and selfless._"

"_This would coincide with my view on life. I believe life is pointless. There is no afterlife, no greater meaning. We are simply mammals that through evolution have developed a consciousness that thinks that we would rather be alive than dead, since people who think that are more likely to stay alive instead of being dead. We are also programmed to generate offspring, since someone who has more babies passes on the genes to make more babies. Evolution is somewhat akin to a self-fulfilling prophesy: 'State A because of State A.' But that's not what is important here. You have come to the conclusion that I am suitable for Hufflepuff, which I agree is true if my theory holds. However, I doubt that other 'selfless' Hufflepuffs would agree with my views, although my theory suggest that they are atleast somewhat happy-go-lucky and I agree with that. Let me ask you, of your previous people which have been offered both but only Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, how many chose Hufflepuff?_"

After the long explanation given by the young girl, the hat was happy to feel that he had at least some interactivity with her.

After giving it some thought of whether he should reveal this information to the girl, he thought that she seemed harmless enough. "_None._"

"_I won't ask for exactly the personalities of those persons, but I can ask something else. Why did they go to Ravenclaw? The easiest answer would be due to the prestige there, but since I do not know the personalities of those persons I cannot say for sure. Thinking as another person gives me headaches. Regardless, I wanted to tell you that despite of this 'realization', I wish to go to Ravenclaw._"

"_I thought you cared nothing of prestige. Why then? My own guess is that you would find more friends in Hufflepuff._"

"_Your first guess is correct and I agree on your second. No, I would rather say that I enjoy my life due to it being full of knowledge that I look for, instead of saying that I enjoy life because I know it is pointless. That would be depressing and I'd rather feel happy about my house. Hedonism, you know?_"

"_Very well, this conversation has been most... interesting for me. I am not God and I cannot read people perfectly, and as I told you before, I can perfectly discern whether people are suited for a house or not. Therefore, I can give you an example that would disprove of your Hufflepuff theory. A certain fourth-grader, named Cedric Diggory is very loyal, but I can say for sure, he has goals. He is not happy-go-lucky. You might want to look into that._"

"_Maybe. Knowledge is fun when it is given or realized through trial and error. Otherwise it can be a pain and I'd rather trail and error with magic, or just sleep. Dreams are a great source of inspiration, you know?_"

"_Wish I could dream. But anyhow, it's about time I speak up._"

And with that, after roughly 15 minutes of the hat being on her head, it spoke up:

"I'm sorry for this taking far too much time, much to the annoyance of everyone, but without further ado, I'm placing this girl in RAVENCLAW!"

All of the students cheered loudly for her. They were getting hungry and she was postponing it.

* * *

><p>"<em>The girl was certainly interesting." The hat thought. "Her mind was downright chaotic, sometimes impossible to grasp as her thoughts would just start somewhere, then abrubtly disappear only to reappear somewhere else. She was good at theories, indeed, although the way her mind worked she would often come to Conclusion A, remember it but forgetting the Process A required for Conclusion A, where Process A is how she arrived to Conclusion A. When she needs Conclusion B, which is reliant on A, normal people would only have to do Conclusion A + Process B, but she has to do Process A + Process B. She downright confuses herself in that she has very sound theories but can't remember how she thought of them. No wonder she thinks herself insane. She doesn't seem to mind though. If I were to describe how it actually was, the normal memories of a normal person is three-dimensional memories in a three-dimensional mind, whereas hers is four-dimensional memories in a three-dimensional mind.<em>"

The hat shrugged. "_I certainly hope the next person will go quickly. I need a break._"


	5. Meetings

Anne sat down by the Ravenclaw table, and a the brown-haired boy she was sitting next to her instantly started talking.

"Well, you wouldn't mind telling us why all of that took 15 minutes, would you? Not even Harry Potter took that long!" He said.

"Me and the hat was having a nice discussion on philosophy. Speaking of that name, I've heard it a lot. Who is he exactly?"

"Muggleborn, eh? Well, Harry Potter is famous for defeating He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named when he was an infant, ending a long war. That's pretty much the basic reason. Potter survived a curse that is usually lethal to anyone it touches, but he somehow survived and the spell bounced back to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. I doubt you wish to know more, muggleborns tend to be somehat uninterested." He smiled just a bit.

"I can see why. It isn't very interesting. I'm Anne, you?"

"Terry Boot."

"Well then Terry, who is He-Who-Should-Get-A-Proper-Name?" "_Define proper._" she told herself.

Terry did not smile at the joke. "A very dark wizard, he held all of wizarding Britain in terror for several years."

"I see. It's quite obvious you wish to not speak of it. I'll not bring it up again today." Anne made sure to say 'today'.

He nodded, and the two of them, and the rest of the people who had listened into the conversation of the 15-minute girl, started to look back at the hat, hoping to have more people placed into their house. The sorting wasn't completely finished yet. A girl named Padma Patil was eventually sorted into Ravenclaw as well, and the rest of them cheered for her as she sat down by Anne. She didn't say a word as she sat down.

The headmaster said a few words of rubbish, and told them that the feast had begun, and food appeared onto the tables. Anne ate quite a lot, and a few of the other Ravenclaw girls gave her a wierd look. "_Diets are for the foolish._"

Padma eventually spoke up to the other first-year Ravenclaws. "So, which courses do you guys look forward to the most?"

Terry was first to answer. "Defense and Potions."

A blonde boy looked at Terry. "I heard that this year's Defense teacher is more fragile than glass and that our potions master might is majorly biased towards Slytherin. I look forward to Astronomy and Flying by the way."

Anne looked a bit and noticed that people were expecting her to speak up. "Charms, Transfiguration, Arithmancy, just a little of Defense, and Muggle Studies."

"It's quite obvious on why you're in Ravenclaw, Transfiguration and Arithmancy are supposedly the hardest subjects here. But why Muggle Studies? Aren't you muggleborn?" Terry asked.

"When you become what you live around, you stop noticing its quirks. It's kind of like scents, if you become too accustomed to it you stop noticing it and you can't smell it."

"Whoa, deep." Terry said quietly.

"Why, I thought Muggle Studies was obviously one of the most interesting subjects for muggleborns. You don't?"

"I'm not muggleborn, but my guess would be that most muggleborns would quickly become bored with their own culture that has no magic."

Padma once felt left out. "I look forward to Potions and Charms. Maybe Care of Magical Creatures."

"Don't hope for too much on that last one." An older student told Padma.

Anne wondered how Hermione was doing on Gryffindor.

* * *

><p>As the feast ended, the lot of the first-year Ravenclaws were guided by a Prefect, named Penelope Clearwater. She showed them the way to their common room. It was at the top of a spiral staircase in a tower. Rather ominous.<p>

"Alright, in order to enter the common room, you will be asked a riddle. If you get it right, you get to come in. If you get it wrong, keep trying or wait for someone else to come around to solve it for you. Don't bash the door hoping people will hear you bash and open for you."

They looked at the painting hanging on the door. The depicted person looked rather tipsy. "What is buddha?"

"Masagin." Penelope answered. She let out a tired sigh.

The door opened. Anne couldn't make any sort of sense of the riddle or its answer and wondered if it was a wizard thing. The rest of the first-years looked just as confused as she did. Penelope seemed used to it.

The common room was rather... majestic. She didn't get much time to look at it though, she along with the rest of the girls were quickly shoved into their dorms.

"So, what's the first course we have tomorrow?" A brunette asked as she started unpacking her stuff.

"Charms I believe. Every first-year has their first lesson with their dorm head, so it's also a solo lesson." Padma answered.

After that, the rest of them quickly went to bed. Anne had trouble going to sleep however, she wasn't accustomed to sleeping in the same room as other people at all. So out of boredom she eventually fetched her Rubik's cube and started trying to change its colors without touching it. She had little success. She didn't notice herself falling asleep.


	6. Transfiguration

"Anne, wake up! You're going to miss breakfast like this!"

Anne couldn't completely make out who it was from the voice she heard. Her eyes were still closed and she didn't really wish to open them yet, but missing breakfast would make her hungry and she'd rather not be hungry, so she forced them open. Padma was looking at her with a somewhat concerned look.

"_She remembers my name? I hardly spoke with her yesterday... Oh wait, I remember her name. It's not that unusual actually when you think about it..._"

After waking Anne, Padma hurried down out of her dorms and made her way towards breakfast. Anne was still somewhat sleepy, but she had already forced herself up so the rest of the ordeal wasn't all too difficult. She got dressed in her now blue robes (which she quite liked, contrary to most other muggleborns who wanted to continue wearing jeans and shirts), and lazily made her own way towards breakfast. She met Hermione by the entrance and waved towards her.

"Good morning. How's Gryffindor?" Anne asked.

"Hello Anne!" Hermione smiled. "Well, the only people I've met so far were by the dinner table yesterday, and my first impression is that... I'm still quite lost for words of it actually. You?"

"I'm not sure. I'm bad at reading other people, but they atleast seem quite determined to do well in their studies." Anne didn't quite agree with their determination, she _never_ studied. Ever.

"That seems kind of nice." Hermione sighed, questioning herself if she shouldn't have wished for Ravenclaw instead. Anne did not agree that the qualities of her peers were nice. She would most likely be shunned as soon as they found out about her non-existant studying techniques.

"What happened with the sorting hat by the way?" Hermione asked. "From what I've read, the longest time that anyone has taken in 30 years with the hat was 4 minutes, and that was because the first-year was shouting at the hat for placing it in the wrong house. Taking 15 minutes is unheard of, and the hat only spoke two sentences!"

"_That might explain why Padma remembered my name._" "Well, me and the hat had a nice discussion about some philosophy. The rest is secret. Have a nice breakfast!" Anne smiled at Hermione and walked away.

* * *

><p>Anne was happy. Really happy. They had <strong>cinnamon<strong> at their breakfast table. And lots of other good stuff. Like bread. Anne loved bread. However, she still couldn't get her iPod to work. Other students looked funnily at her as she stared at the black screen.

"What's that you've got?" Terry asked her with an interested look on his face.

"You don't know? It's a media player. It plays music into these two pieces here. I'm still trying to figure out why it doesn't work." Anne's gaze was still focused on the muggle piece of technology.

"Wow, so it transfers music along those black lines? That's actually kind of neat."

"Well, it would be if it worked. It's been completely dead since I the train ride here."

"What, you mean it used to be _alive_?" Terry said with a shocked look on his face. Anne chuckled.

"Terminology. No, you usually call anything that's out of batteries dead. While I'm quite certain it's still charged, it just won't work."

"Batteries? Charge?" He said with a confused look.

"Are wizards completely ignorant of electricity?"

"Well, I don't know what that word means, so I guess yes, they are." He felt mildly insulted.

"I thought that wizards would atleast know something of how the world supposedly worked. You about lightning? Lightning happens due to electricity. There's a difference of electrical charge between the ground and the clouds, and since nature is all about balance, tries to even out this difference. The result is a massive discharge of energy between the two points, producing lightning. I'm probably slightly off, but that's the basic idea of why lightning happens in nature. Most pieces of muggle technology uses electricity to work."

"Wow, so you've got lightning bolts inside of that small thing? Muggles must be crazy to carry around something like that!"

Anne actually laughed at his comment, and her eyes started tearing up just a bit. "The way your hair may sometimes stick up after you comb it is also due to electricity, but you don't have any lightning bolts there, do you? No, the amount of electricity in this is probably not even a millionth of what a lightning bolt has." She still couldn't stop her inward laughing of how Terry had interpreted her previous statement.

"Oh. Well, I suppose not even muggles could store lightning bolts."

Anne didn't bother telling him that he'd be surprised to hear of what some people did at research facilities. The two of them were quiet for a while.

"... Although I do know why it doesn't work. Most pieces of muggle technology just doesn't work around magic. It's probably due to that that most wizards just don't bother with what muggles are doing, it doesn't work around magic anyway."

Anna slightly panicked at this statement. "_No music? No computer games? No **internet**?_" Her whole world was crashing down upon her. "_Okay, forget about any other long-term projects you had. Find a way to make the important stuff work here!_" She eventually got over the shock and felt like talking again.

"How come no other muggleborns are upset about this?"

"I thought you'd already know why due to what we spoke about yesterday. Most muggleborns just forget about their own culture once they learn of that magic exists."

Anne still couldn't fathom the idea. "_People stop associating with their whole family for magic? And I thought that I was 'heartless'..._"

The remainder of their breakfast was quiet.

* * *

><p>Anne followed the other first-year Ravenclaws to where their first lesson is Charms was located. "<em>How come these people know the way? I don't think anyone else has been in this huge castle before, and we don't have any sort of map. When did these people find the time to memorize all of this?<em>"

They opened a door to be greeted by a tiny man standing on top of a pile of books. Anne thought the situation was hilarious, but didn't say a word of it.

"Hello my dear Ravenclaws. I'm Professor Flitwick, and I'm the head of your house, and also your teacher in charms. Although, for this lesson we won't be doing much charmwork at all. Instead, think of this as nothing more than a meeting to get you ready for your time here at Hogwarts."

"_If that's the case, why is it listed as 'Charms' on our timetable for this week?_" Anne thought with some sarcasm.

The class was boring. They didn't even get to bring out their wands at all. Just sitting there and recieving some basic information that students always get at the start of a year. Anne didn't register much of it and remembered even less.

* * *

><p>So, what's our next lesson? Anne asked Padma. She rarely bothered looking at her own timetable, it was easier and faster to ask people who already knew.<p>

"Transfiguration with the Gryffindors." She replied. Padma gave her a wierd look. "_Why didn't she know herself?_"

Now that Anne actually had a map, she could find her way to the classrooms by herself should she wish to. She foresaw that she probably would, often.

Transfiguration class was held by... a cat? Anne was surprised by this. She hadn't seen any talking animals before this at all. When the cat transformed into Minerva, the other previously calm students gasped, and the previously surprised Anne became calm. "_Ah, that makes much more sense._"

"Good day students. I am Professor McGonagall, and I will be teaching you Transfiguration for as long as you are studying at Hogwarts. I'm going to warn you right now, Transfiguration is one of the most difficult subjects taught at Hogwarts. Not only difficult, but also dangerous. Should I see anyone fooling around inside my classroom, our outside it for that matter, I shall see to that you are not taking another Transfiguration class with me again. Is that clear?"

"Yes, Professor McGonagall" the other students said together. Anne was silent.

"Why Transfiguration is dangerous is simple to understand. Transfiguration can very easily turn bad. For example, should any of your body parts ever be transfigured, it is likely that you will have to amputate. Even if Transfiguration is not permanent, turning your body into a foreign element works quite a lot like frostbite. Also, because it is not permanent, you will never turn any material into a gas or into a liquid. You will never consume anything that has been transfigured. Is that clear?"

"Yes, Professor McGonagall" All of the students said together. The other students were just as vigorous as before. They did it out of compliance. Anne did it because she agreed that it was dangerous.

"Right then, your first lesson is going to be turning this these matches into needles. Wands out, grab a needle and start trying to transfigure your matches. In order to transfigure something, you need to have a clear mental vision of what result you want. Then you apply that to the object you wish to transfigure. Know that there are no wand movements or spell incantations within Transfiguration, it is instead a matter of will."

Anne raised her hand.

"Yes, Miss Valerian?" Minerva said.

"Real world objects have three dimensions. However, sight, as our mind comprehends it is almost strictly two-dimensional. While we can rotate an object and use several two-dimensional images to try and construct a three-dimensional object, our imagination is still two-dimensional as we see an object in _sequences_ or _parts_, we cannot see all of the sides of an object at once. Given this, how should we imagine the needle?"

The whole class was silent. Hermione was probably the only one that understood all of it and thought it was interesting.

"Is she mental?" Anne could just barely hear the whispers of a red-haired boy from Gryffindor.

"_I'm going to have a tiring year._" Minerva thought. "It cannot be completely explained. That is why you train. See what works for you." She replied.

Anne nodded and grabbed her match. She even retrieved her wand from her robes.

* * *

><p>Transfiguration wasn't as difficult as she had thought. Just imagine that what you're trying to transfigure already is the object you're going to transfigure it to, and Anne didn't have much trouble transfiguring her match into a needle. It wasn't as much visualizing as Minerva had put it, it was more a problem of convincing herself that it already was a needle. And Anne was easy to convince. Afterwards, just touching it with your wand changed it quickly.<p>

"5 points to Ravenclaw." Minerva said.

Hermione wasn't far behind Anne, and managed her own transfiguration on her match. She also got 5 points from Minerva.

There was roughly 20 minutes left of the lesson, and Anne was starting to get bored just changing it back and forth between needle and match, so she put her wand away and started to try doing it without it. Hermione was once again giving her disapproving looks, but Anne didn't mind. As it turned out, doing it without the wand was much harder. She had picked up the match, held it in front of her eyes, then convinced herself: "_This is a needle._" If it had contact with her wand, it would change instantly. Without it, nothing happened.

"_Well, isn't this great. I can't change this needle because I have convinced myself that I need the wand to change it. This would be much easier if I tried my first transfiguration without the wand._"

Then she had an idea. Oh it was brilliant, in a sense, atleast for her. "_What if I forget about all of this, and tell myself to do it without the wand and it'll work?_" Then she realized that it wasn't much as brilliant as she first had thought. While she could (usually) choose whether to remember something or not, she couldn't choose to just forget it. That's like telling yourself: "_Don't think of polar bears for one minute._" It was some sort of ancient greek philosophy problem, though she didn't know the name of it.

So, memory manipulation was out. She couldn't think of anything else at the moment, so she raised her hand. Minerva came quite quickly, she hadn't been occupied.

"Yes, Miss Valerian?" Her face was neutral.

"What are we going to do next lesson on transfiguration?" Anne asked.

"_Gluttunous._" Minerva smiled to herself. "We'll continue with the match to needle transfiguration for two weeks. I assume that you want to move on to something harder, but simply learning faster than others does not give you special rights."

"Ah, so there's harder transfigurations? How does it get harder?"

"Well, eventually, the objects we transfigure will get bigger, or we will transfigure objects into animals or the other way."

Anne was shocked to hear the thing about animals, but continued with her 'interrogation'. "Ah, so bigger or just more complex things makes it harder?"

"Correct, but you will not be doing any of that on your own. I will be forced to remove you from our class should you attempt to." She said with a voice that would sound slightly threatening to someone that had such plans.

"Oh dear me, no, I wasn't. I was actually going to ask you for something easier than the match to needle experiment."

This surprised McGonagall. "I thought you already succeeded in this experiment. Why would you want to try something easier?" She didn't attempt to hide her curiosity.

"... Personal reasons." Anne answered after giving it some thought.

Minerva wasn't too interested in why. "Well, I'm then I'm sorry to tell you that this is the easiest transfiguration excersise that I know of. Otherwise, I would be administering easier ones to the students that still can't do match to needle."

"_Makes sense._" "Ok, thanks. In that case, do you have some untransfigured needles?"

"Why, yes I do." Minerva was aware that she couldn't give the girl harder excersises that the other students, but she had no qualms about giving her others that were equally hard. She wanted Anne's talent for transfiguration as much as possible. She reached for one of her pockets on her robes and retrieved some needles. "Was there anything else that you wanted to know, Miss Valeria?"

"Nothing. Thanks." Anne gave her a smile, and Minerva walked back to her table.

She quickly transfigured the needle into a match with her wand.

"_As much as I would like to lit this match, I can't because that would produce gases that could be lethal once it turns back into a needle. No, I should try something else._"

She snapped the match in half and waited until it would untransfigure. And there it was. She wouldn't have been able to snap it should she have attempted it while it was in undamaged needle form. She kept the other needles that she had recieved from Minerva. She would snap them later for her experiments then, so she put the lot of them into her pocket. By then, the lesson was over.


	7. Herbs and Curses

While Anne had recieved a map from Flitwick, resorting to asking the other Ravenclaws was still easier. Even if she had a map, it was tedious to withdraw it from her pockets. Asking Padma was just that much faster and easier.

"Right Padma, what's our next lesson?"

Padma seemed mildly annoyed and hoped that this wouldn't go on for the whole year. "Herbology with Slytherin."

* * *

><p>Anne's first guess of what Herbology was was that it was some sort of Wizarding Biology. She found her guess to be quite wrong as Herbology was little more than gardening. Of course, Sprout felt somewhat offended when Anne had compared it to something as simple as muggle gardening, seeing as the plants they were handling were magical.<p>

"If we view this from a muggle perspective, what difference is there between a magical and a non-magical plant? A lot of the plants you've told us about, or the ones present in our book seem to be completely unknown to the muggle world. I'm certain that they would remember something as eyecatching as man-eating plants with teeth, or mandragora. How come muggles haven't discovered these? If the plants can be found in the wild, then certainly there's no wizard around them to obliviate any muggle that finds them." Anne said.

"Both of plants that you used as examples are possibly lethal. Muggles usually don't survive their encounters with either of them."

"Fine, non-lethal plants then. Why are they not found?"

"Most magical plants have the innate attribute of looking like any other plant that the muggle recognizes, thus they ignore them. Now miss Valerian, continue with your project."

Anne sighed and did not notice the Slytherins that were looking at her with hateful eyes. "Mudblood," they called her.

She had heard them say it, and responded. "I would agree, I personally think that I'm working with far too much dirt at the moment, although I have managed to not cut myself with the scissors. My blood isn't muddy just yet."

The Slytherins hated her for being muggleborn and for bringing up 'muggle knowledge' in _their_ classroom. "_She's also a stupid, ignorant fool._" They thought. Anne didn't take any notice of it, or them for that matter, thinking they were neutral just like she assumed everyone was.

This lesson basically consisted of learning the name of a plant, what it's used for, and learning how to tend to the plants. This specific plant in particular (which Anne couldn't be bothered remembering the name of) needed to have its branches cut off once a week lest it would overgrow. Anne's thumb had never been very green in her life, and she quickly got bored of the repeated motions of her hand. "_There's no end to this kind of job._" she thought and really hated it quite a lot. Mowing lawns was much more fun, you'd see unmowed parts shrink as you did it and get a sense of completeness. But to Anne, this felt like all work and no gain.

She was considering if she should try cutting the branches with her magic as she had done with her table at home. She wasn't completely sure that it would be reliable though, she still had problems doing that. She decided that she would take the risk though, should she end up with disaster she could blame it on accidental magic or she could skip the lesson due to injury. She held out her hand, and the branch, without a sound, fell into her hand. Anne smiled, and kept doing it for the rest of the lesson without failing once. It was a lot less boring as it was practice on something that she actually found fun. She thought that no one noticed anyway.

* * *

><p>Defense against the Dark Arts. Anne wasn't quite sure of what they would be learning. She expected that it would either contain generic combat spells, or how to dispel curses (because to Anne's knowledge of muggle literature, curses were long-lasting effects put on an object that were hard to get rid of), or they would only be taught how to deal with 'dark' things. What classified something as dark, she didn't know.<p>

The other Ravenclaws didn't seem to agree. She and Terry were the only exceptions. Most of them had a somewhat sour look on them as they made their way to their classroom, the rest were neutral. They would be having this class with the Hufflepuffs, and those at least somewhat more eager to learn. If the subject taught any of the things that Anne thought it could, she thought that it would be at least somewhat interesting. Surely it had some applications for daily life!

The teacher that stood in front of them in their classroom wasn't exactly what Anne had been expecting. The man wore the coolest piece of headgear that Anne had ever seen in real life; It was a lavender-colored turban. One of its ends was twirled around his neck which also gave her the image that it was also a scarf. While the turban was undeniably awesome, she thought that the demeanor of the man didn't fit very well with it. He seemed extremely nervous, not knowing where to place his hands. He didn't exactly look scared, but he did seem uncomfortable with the situation. Actually, Anne had briefly seen him him at the sorting, and he had looked just as he did now, so she corrected herself and instead thought that he was uncomfortable with _every_ situation. Really, the man would probably not speak if it wasn't neccesary for the job he had for some reason applied to.

Anne wondered whether the man wore the eyecatching turban to boost his own confidence. She felt pity for him. Had she not, she would probably have found the combination to be comical.

"G-Good afternoon, students. I am P-P-Proffessor Quirrell, I will be teaching you D-Defense against the D-Dark Arts." He looked nauseous at the idea.

"_Good lord he stutters._" Anne thought. It was without malice or irritation.

"In this class you will be l-learning how to defend yourself, not only ag-gainst other wizards b-but also against magical c-creatures such as d-d-d-dragons." Most of the other Ravenclaws seemed scared of the idea rather than excited about it. Some Hufflepuffs seemed more concerned about not harming the endangered dragons.

"_Well, that clears up a lot. It's a class about combat._" Anne thought.

"It however n-not only about learning a repertoire of s-spells, but also s-steeling your c-consciousness to recognize the t-tricks that some creatures use, such as b-boggarts. I-It is not only knowledge but also d-d-discipline and will."

"_I can understand why most of the other Ravenclaws aren't too fascinated by the subject._" Anne thought. "_It's not something you can only study on. Although maybe they will change their minds when they become older out of need._" Anne already considered herself mature enough.

"For today, we will p-practice the D-Disarming charm, _Expelliarmus_. Find a partner to work with or p-practice on one of the suits of a-armor, I d-do not mind which. A p-perfect Disarming Ch-Charm will not only d-disarm your target, b-but it will a-also send what y-you disarmed towards you. I-If it is too strong h-however, your target m-may instead be flung b-backwards, often q-quite violently. Be c-careful!"

Anne decided that she would use some armor for practice, but she had a question before they would start so she raised her hand. The other Ravenclaws had been expecting it.

"Y-Yes, miss... ?"

"Anne. Please call me Anne without any prefix. I was wondering, what makes an art 'dark'?"

The Ravenclaws couldn't figure out why she was being so personal. The Hufflepuffs probably thought that she was taking advantage of the frail proffessor.

"W-Well miss Anne, what usually classifies (Anne noted that he did not say _define_, suggesting that it was something agreed upon) something as 'd-d-dark' is more than one th-thing. Dark m-magic is u-usually addictive, dangerous, requires n-negative emotions to be u-used, destroy your s-sanity, or require you to prepare s-s-sacrifices b-beforehand."

"_Something is dark because they need negative emotions? That's just stupid. Anger sprung from evolution because it was beneficial to our survival, therefore it isn't 'dark' or 'bad'._"

"For example," Quirrell continued, "the three unforgivable curses. The K-Killing curse will... anyone it hits. The Tormenting curse c-can turn someone b-braindead for the r-rest of their lives, and the Imperius curse f-forces you to perform a-any order given."

She agreed. That did sound bad. "What is an unforgivable curse?"

"You would b-be sent to Azkaban s-should you perform or practice one on s-someone else." Anne didn't bother asking what Azkaban was. It was probably some sort of asylum, a prison, or execution camp. In other words, bad.

Unless Quirrell gave her an interesting answer, Anne only had one more question. The others were getting tired and wanted to practice. Was this common knowledge? "Then, why are all the unforgivable curses, well, 'curses'? What defines a curse? If something is classified as a Dark Art, is it a curse?"

Quirrell was silent for a short period. "M-Most, but not all curses are h-harmful and deliver p-pain and destruction, but s-sometimes d-destruction is useful. Some c-curses only disable their t-target for a while, such as the L-Leg Locking c-curse, a-and are therefore safe f-for use. We w-will even be learning a f-few in this class."

Anne was very satisfied with the answers she got and went to experiment with her suit of armor.

* * *

><p>Casting a charm upon an object was not as mentally easy as it was to transfigure something. You couldn't imagine the armor as being in a state, because the <em>Expelliarmus<em> charm has a projectile that is associated with it, which must hit its target, and it takes time for the projectile to reach the armor. Fine, it wasn't really a 'projectile' as it wasn't composed of anything material, but for her it was the best word for it. It had velocity and direction. That was enough for her. With transfiguration, she could just imagine the object that she wished to transfigure already was transfigured and it would change instantly once her wand touched it. She didn't get far when she tried to do the same with this charm, as there were far more variables for her to consider. A shy girl from Hufflepuff that had also been practicing with armor had offered to help her as she could not even produce the projectile for the charm, but Anne doubted that she would be of any help and thus declined the offer. Yes, all of the other students had at least managed to produce the projectile. Terry was one of the few who had managed to disarm someone, or something. As for what disarming a suit of armor meant, it meant that the arm would dislocated by its shoulder and fly away.

"_If being insane is good for transfiguration, then it is crap for charms. This calls for experimentation._"

She walked up to the suit of armor.

After finishing her wand movements, she said "_Expelliarmus!_" and _poked_ the armor with her wand. The arm flew off.

"T-Two points to Ravenclaw for original solution." Quirrell said, who had noticed her problems beforehand. Anne gave him a quick glance, assumed that an 'original solution' was inferior to a properly cast charm as it had not given her 5 points, and then returned to her thoughts.

"_Well, at least I'm not incapable of charms. Although if I can't do it from a distance, that defeats the purpose of why I want to learn magic. This is something that I need to fix quickly._" She realized that this was why she couldn't change the color of her Rubik's cube without touching it. Although she had seen magic being done, through non-prepared wand magic, that didn't have projectiles. Sprout had closed the door to the greenhouse they had their lesson in merely by waving her wand towards it. So, at least some magic didn't require projectiles.

"_Wait, Rubik's cube?_"

She retrieved the cube from one of her ever-filled pockets and changed its color. The match to needle transfigurations that she had done earlier today would last roughly 20 seconds unless she reapplied the transfiguration. She stared at her cube intently, waiting for it to return to its original colors. It did not.

"_And thus, whatever magic I am doing with my hands is not transfiguration. Minerva can't stop me from doing it whatever I wish with it then._" Anne had a mischevious grin on her lips.

The lesson finished without Anne being able to produce a proper Disarming Charm. She wasn't too happy about it, but accepted it. They had no more lessons for the day. Back in the common room, the other Ravenclaws were reviewing what they had learned today, and they didn't look tired even one moment. They hadn't gotten a lot of homework, just a little from Minerva. Anne didn't bother, she was always late to the minute. Normally she would use this time to laze off with her internet, but as the darn thing would not work at all, she would be doing other things to entertain herself.

* * *

><p>Anne tried to find a place in Hogwarts where she could be alone. She decided that she would look in the library first. As it turned out, it wasn't empty, there were a few people there reading some books, but luckily there were rooms there that you could use for private reading. Anne entered an empty one and took out the two pieces of the needle that she had made during Transfiguration.<p>

"_This may take a few tries._" This was her experiment:

_Experiment 1_:

1. Take one needle, transfigure to match.  
>2. Break match in half.<br>3. Turn both parts of the match into mush (a la failed wandless magic).  
>4. Mix both parts of mush.<br>5. Wait for the clump of mush to untransfigure.  
>6. Observe result.<p>

"_Since my wandless magic of turning things to mush is permanent, it is not transfiguration and should not interfere with the matches turning back into needles._" Anne thought. She didn't bother writing anything of this. She preferred experiments that were trial and error and she was not fond of documentation.

Back in her house, turning things to mush wasn't really a reaction that she appreciated, and she found that trying to replicate something that you really tried hard to forget was quite difficult. Luckily, she had a bunch of random objects in her pockets that she could train on to make sure that her chances of doing two mush-changes in in sequence would be higher. Even if she managed to turn one half of the broken match into mush, if the other one exploded she would have to restart. And she didn't have much time to do both mush-changes, her transfigurations only lasted 20 seconds at the moment. She had a limited amount of needles and could not practice the mush-change on those.

* * *

><p>After getting her mush-change up to something like a 50% success rate, she decided that she would start actually trying the experiment. On average, her total chance of success was 25%, as she had to do two successful mush-changes in a row.<p>

On Anne's third try, she observed the following:

Turned match part 1 into mush.  
>Turned match part 2 into mush.<br>Mixed mush part 1 and mush part 2.

She waited intently for the mush to untransfigure. And there it was, a full needle, not two parts of it.

"Woohoo! Success!" She exclaimed. She had forgotten that she was in a library but it didn't matter, the private rooms were soundproof (Although they had windows to make sure that students wouldn't use them for purposes that were less appreciated by the library, Anne didn't think anything of it).

* * *

><p>Experiment 2:<p>

"_What the hell is up with these spell names?_"

She retrieved a very small and tiny teddy bear from one of her pockets and sat it upon the table.

"_Expelliarmus!_" she said and poked it. The arm of the poor toy was ripped off. Oh well, she could always fix it later by the mush-repair process once she was good enough at transfiguration to transfigure the toy. Atleast she knew it worked on objects other than armor. "_Kinda wierd that it would do this to anything other than living things_." she mused.

She retrieved an identical teddy bear from the same pocket.

She did the same wand movements. "_Expel Arms!_" she said and poked it. Unfortunately, nothing happened. She wasn't very surprised about it, but she had wanted to test it.

For the rest of the evening she just practiced cutting things as she had done in Herbology. It was impossible to perform without touching what she had wanted to cut, and the objects had to be absolutely tiny. She did however manage to do it to the needles, which she could not have done with just brute strength. Feeling satisfied, she went back to the Ravenclaw common room to be greeted by the painting hanging on the door, awaiting her with a riddle.

"What, is the circumference of a moose?"

"I'm a ninja?" The answer being a question was part of the answer. The door opened and she made her way to her bed. She was tired.


End file.
